We're Fancy!

Leigh and I have had duck on two occasions. Once in Korea I cooked a duck. It was almost inedible. We also had orange duck and Keegan and Laurel's wedding. Hands down, one of the best bites of food I have ever eaten. Based on our split experiences we were a little on the fence about raising ducks for food.

The friend we buy our chickens from gave us a free Muscovy duck as a joke when we got our last batch of chickens. Muscovy's are odd ducks (pun a little bit intended) in that they are not big on the water. They can and will swim, but in no way need water to live. They are from South America so handle heat well. The do not fly well, only about as well as a chicken does. They are easily recognizable because they are huge for ducks and get warty bumps all over their faces. I don't seem to have a picture of our duck but I got one off the Internet. Ours looked just like this.

We were looking forward to duck eggs because supposedly they are wonderful to bake with. We waited and waited...then realized our duck was a boy. It's rough to be a male livestock on our farm. It usually substantially shortens your life expectancy. As soon as Duck started beating up the chickens we knew his time had come. I had never cooked a duck that was edible, so I was nervous. I didn't want to ruin something and have to waste it. I found a recipe for honey duck on Allrecipes.com. I think it came out looking pretty good.

It was not nearly as delicious as the duck at the wedding, but it was for sure edible. A few things we learned though: Braising or slow cooking is a must. The legs were so tough we couldn't eat them. Slaughtering earlier is also a must. The flavor and texture was a lot like beef. Our kids, who neat next to no beef, were not huge fans, but I think it will grow on them.

It will be a few months before we add ducks back to the farm. We would like them to have separate housing from the chickens and be more educated on when to slaughter and how to prepare them. I am happy though that we were able to raise something and eat it. We know that the meat we were eating was free of hormones, antibiotics and additives, and it was humanely raised and slaughtered. That means a lot to us. And you better beilieve the carcass is poised for the stock pot, and the remnants, minus the large bones are destined for the pigs. Waste nothing!

Waste Not, Want Not

We are big on not wasting food here. Something that is harder than it sounds. Anyone with small children realizes that wasting food is part of having kids. We work every day to teach our children where their food comes from and the blessing it is to have a full belly when you go to bed at night. But not wasting food starts far before it gets to the table.

This year we grew about 20 lbs of pumpkins. We forgot to carve them for Halloween. Ooops! I decided I would make them into pumpkin bread. First I had to cut them and clean out the seeds.

Then roast at 400 degrees until they are soft all the way through.

We are a bit spoiled because we have pigs, so once I scraped out the soft squash, I was able to put the stems, seeds and skins into the pig pen. The pigs were happy! Absolutely NOTHING from the pumpkins went into the trash,

I did not end up taking a picture of the pumpkin bread and muffins. I forgot. But here is the recipe for pumpkin bread sweetened with honey:

1 3/4 cup pumpkin puree (this is roughly one 15 oz can)

4 eggs

1/2 cup oil (I used sunflower oil because it is GMO free)

1/2 cup UNSWEETENED applesauce

6 1/2 Tbsp water

1 1/2 cups + 2 Tbsp honey

3 1/3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1  1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

3/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour 2 8x4 loaf pans. (I did one batch with 2 loaves, and one batch with 1 loaf, 12 muffins, and 24 mini muffins).

In a large bowl mix together the pumpkin, oil, applesauce, water, eggs, and honey until well blended. In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking soda, and spices.

Mix the dry into the wet until just blended. Fold in the nuts.

Bake loaves for 50 minutes, muffins for 18 minutes, or mini muffins for 12 minutes.

Enjoy!

The same day I made the pumpkin bread, I also made chicken stock. I usually buy whole chickens because they are cheaper than chicken parts, also I like to use the carcass for stock. This was good practice because we have had to slaughter a few of our chickens and I like to be able to use every part.

I throw the carcass into a pot with about 12 cups of water, 3 tsp of salt, carrots, celery, onions, and 6 whole cloves. This time I also added some peppers Leigh's grandparents grew in their garden. I have been known to add mushrooms, parsley, basil or oregano too, though the more basic the stock is the more versatile it is in recipes.

Cover and simmer a few hours until the stock is rich and flavorful. I use Ball freezer jars because we live at 4700 feet and pressure canning at this altitude makes a horrible noise and I can't stand it. Once I strain out the stock almost all the rest goes to the pigs.

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I did say almost because I pick out the bigger bones and they DO go in the trash. I don't want the softened bones to splinter in the pigs' throat. We are eventually going to dry the bones of our food and grind them into bone meal for garden supplementation.

But if that was all that went into the trash out of 20 lbs of pumpkins, 2 chicken carcasses and a few pounds of veggies, I think that was a win!